By - Amit kumaR Agarwal
Anupam Kher enthralled the students and the delegates attending IFFI 2024 by a hypnotic masterclass held in a packed auditorium at Kala Academy, Panaji, Goa, on Day 4 of the ongoing 55th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
Kher started the session on the topic ‘Power of Failure’ by revealing, “I think I am the success story of my own failures.” The entire session was indeed a masterclass on Life lessons, packed with
numerous stories from his personal life adorned by his characteristic wit.
Anupam Kher said his story began in Shimla where a joint family of fourteen members spent their life in a single room with his father being the only earning member. In his words, they were poor, but surprisingly happy with his grandfather remarking that, “When people are too poor, the cheapest thing
to them becomes happiness.”
The enormously experienced actor recollected the first time he acted a part in a school play while in class 5 saying he was miserable when he failed to secure even a consolation prize. “‘Failure is an event, never a Person’, my father taught me that day.” In his next outing, the budding actor made 27 mistakes in 2 lines of dialogue assigned to him in the play ‘Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare!
Cut to the time when the National School of Drama (NSD) Gold Medal winning young actor came to Mumbai for the first time. Kher said, “I had the confidence to conquer the City of Dreams at the very first chance since I was already an NSD Gold Medallist.” But within a couple of months, he had to shift to Bandra East Railway station to live for 27 days.
But after many ups and downs, Kher was rewarded with the movie ‘Saaransh’. Kher fondly remembered it was in 1984 when he first visited IFFI for that film in Delhi. This year with this masterclass it has become 40 years since his first visit to IFFI.
Life continued to be a rollercoaster ride for Anupam Kher. But in every downfall, be it the time when he met with facial paralysis during the shooting of ‘Hum Aapke Hain Koun’, or when he became nearly bankrupt in 2004; each time, he adhered to the lessons he derived from his father and grandfather.
The audience listened to the turbulent journey of Kher as he animatedly recounted his life. Kher said many attribute his success to his magnetic personality, deliberation and acting, "actually it is a combination of a lot of things" - the sixty-eight years old veteran actor, effortlessly administered the entire audience with tonic of his life philosophy, ‘NEVER GIVE UP’.